When I first began playing Fallout 3, I couldn’t help but compare it to a similar game released some time ago: S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Shadow of Chernobyl.  After all, both games take place in an irradiated wasteland, both have strong RPG elements, and both have you running around a mostly open world completing quests and exploring the environment.

However, there are a number of immediately noticeable differences.  Most notably, up front, is that Fallout 3 will display at a full 1280×1024 resolution on my somewhat dated gaming PC, with reasonable textures and 2X antialiasing and filtering, and yet it still manages to render more than one frame every few seconds, even in intense firefights.  This alone is probably reason enough to prefer Fallout 3 over its theme-alike predecessor.  Add in the whole “not dying every few minutes from ridiculously overpowered enemies and random, invisible radiation pockets” thing, and you realize how great it is to be able to relegate the clumsy slag heap that is STALKER to the dustbin of gaming-flop history, and move on to a far worthier experience.  (Admittedly, I have not played the Clear Sky expansion, but it was probably wise of the company to release it before Fallout 3, as I can’t see it getting any reasonable traction next to this behemoth of a game).

I should also probably mention that, in anticipation of this release, I decided to pick up a copy of the original Fallout game from gog.com.  And, I have to say, if you like retro isometric graphics, as well as the feeling that comes from completely failing at a game over and over and over, then this is the game for you.  Honestly, it kind of felt like a game where you walk down the street, and the game throws spitballs at you for the first couple of blocks.  And then, when you decide to turn the corner and venture somewhere new, the game drops an anvil on your head.  In fact, no matter what scenario or setting I use, it always ends up the same – my character, in a desert, being slowly surrounded and hacked to death by radioactive isometric praying mantises.  

Needless to say, after that experience, I was slightly hesitant about picking up Fallout 3.  While it is obviously quite a different game, there was a bit of concern as to whether I could create a character that could survive longer than 5 minutes in the wasteland.  However, this feeling was tempered by anticipation, largely because the game promised to be an amazingly expansive experience, akin to Oblivion, but without the whole swords and sorcery thing (and let it be said that I hate medieval-themed games with a passion, to such an extent that I never actually did play Oblivion, despite all of the rave reviews – in fact, I normally don’t go near an RPG unless there’s some serious firepower involved, and I’m not talking about the type where you chuck fireballs around, either).  Eventually anticipation won out over caution, and I downloaded the game off of Steam about a half-hour after it was publicly released.  When it finished, I booted it up and played through the admittedly different intro sequence, and then sent my character, Zigmund Argon, into the wasteland, concerned that I might soon be staring depressedly at his corpse.

Luckily, this didn’t turn out to be the case.  It is worth mentioning, though, that even on the easiest difficulty setting, there is a very good probability that your character will end up getting fragged, especially early on in the game (hint: Deathclaws are not your friend; run away very, very fast.)  Although, to be fair, while getting bumped off will occur far more frequently than in, say, an RPG like Mass Effect (for one thing, the whole “no automatic health regeneration” factor), it is much easier to survive than in the initial game in the series.  In fact, the very first death my character experienced was one that should not have even happened – basically, I got rather creative while climbing about, and managed to actually fall off the edge of the game world.  Aside from that, though, there were only a couple of cases where my character died throughout the course of the main campaign, and those were mainly when I mistakenly wandered into an open area and became completely surrounded by enemies, with no cover and nowhere to run.  Otherwise, I took damage, but was always able to pull through, and only rarely had to run away.  So, while the difficulty curve initially seems a bit unfair, it generally lives up to its nature once you’ve got a bit more armor and ammunition.

The game is immense, if sometimes a bit sparse on content – there are many points where you can find yourself wandering around the barren landscape with almost nothing to do, aside from the rare irradiated creature wandering across your path, and it can get frustrating that the only way to chart areas you haven’t visited before is to trundle across a mostly empty wasteland, desperately seeking out something of interest on the horizon.  But, in general, there’s plenty to do, and more then enough creatures to shoot at once you figure out where to look.

One thing to note is that this cannot reasonably be played as a traditional shooter.  Unlike, for example, Mass Effect, you really can’t point and shoot with any of your weapons.  The reason?  Regardless of your skill in any particular weapon class, the weapons rarely shoot straight.  There are precious few scopes, and no iron sights, and the aiming caret is only a general suggestion of where your shot will actually go.  Enemies, however, do not often have this problem, so unless you’re literally within spitting distance, the chance of actually hitting an enemy by shooting at them is vanishingly low.

This means that, realistically, the only way to get through the game without expending a lot of ammo, or taking a lot of damage by charging in close (the satisfaction of a point-blank shotgun blast to an enemy’s skull notwithstanding), is to utilize the VATS combat system.  Surprisingly, though, the system is quite fun t play around with.  Like Mass Effect, you can hit a button to pause the fight and bring up a combat menu.  Unlike Mass Effect, however, you can then choose a specific body part on a chosen enemy to hit, allowing you to perform a set attack in the style of a “realtime” turn-based RPG.  And when you do, the game cuts away to various slow-mo cinematic shots of you, quite literally in some cases, tearing your enemy a new one (and seriously, especially with the Bloody Mess option, this game makes Soldier of Fortune look like a kid’s movie).  Eventually, though, you run out of turns, and then it’s the enemy’s turn – although you can keep shooting inaccurately at them and chipping away at their health until you can recharge enough actions to attack them through the VATS system.  Essentially, it’s a decent blending of RPG and FPS elements in a way that ends up being quite enjoyable at times – although it lacks some of the immediacy and fun of run-and-gun battles that you would see in a more traditional FPS.  Ultimately, I think that the gameplay is more enjoyable if you’re an RPG fan, and straight FPS fans will probably find it somewhat frustrating that they can’t just shoot at everything in sight and hope to be successful.

Overall, I have little to complain about in the game.  One thing to note is that there is a draw-distance glitch that is apparent if you try to play the game at lower settings – the enemies will not “pop in” visually until they are quite close to you, but they will shoot at you long before they can be seen – so you end up having to dodge bullets from nowhere, with no way to shoot back (you can’t seem to use VATS if the target is not visible).  Luckily, a quick manipulation of the Actor Distance slider (under the advanced graphics settings in the setup application) renders the enemies correctly and alleviates this issue.

No, the major issue I have is actually with the game’s plot (actually, I have several issues, but in order to keep this review spoiler-free, you can read about them here.)  Namely, the issue of the game ending quite abruptly, especially when there is so much more that you want your character to do.  Again, this has a lot to do with the game trying to decide what it is – a purely story-driven RPG, or an open-world game where you can choose your own path.  The GTA series, for example, tends to lean more towards the open-world side, and generally gets it right – usually, once the main storyline is over, you get a cinematic ending, some plot-finished bonuses, and are then let loose to do whatever else in the game world that you wish.  More RPG-oriented games, however, seem to forget about their open worlds, and at some point lock you into an end-game plot from which there is no escape.  Mass Effect, to its credit, at least gives you some options, and  lets you know fairly explicitly when you are going to transition from open-ended exploration to the point of no return (although, arguably, not quite early enough to allow for the completion of certain tasks).  Fallout 3, unfortunately, ends up more or less springing it on you – by the time you realize that you’re fully into the endgame, it’s far too late to back out, and the game forces you to finish.  Because of this, autosave-players beware – if you do not have games that were recently, and manually, saved, you will only be able to play through the endgame again and again, or revert to whenever your last manual save was.  

Personally, I find it somewhat troubling when an open-world game seems to give you full control, but then lock you into an ending that you don’t really want to go through with, and ending the game when you really want to play on – especially when you’re forced to watch a cutscene that explains the fruits of your main-plot labors, rather than letting you experiencing them yourself.  I honestly can’t figure out why they couldn’t let you have an “ending” sequence or something, and then let you loose again to explore the world, doing whatever else you wanted to do, and seeing firsthand the results of your actions.  I think the lesson that Bethesda Softworks, Bioware, and others should take away from this is that if your game is open and nonlinear, it doesn’t ever need to officially come to a close – and forcing players up against a wall limits their choices and destroys the illusion of an open world where player choice truly matters.

Overall, though, Fallout 3 is an immense and varied game – I ended up reverting to an earlier save point in order to further explore things, and I’ve already spent more time, I believe, than in my complete playthrough of Mass Effect. Despite that, I have probably only uncovered a third to a half of all of the content that the game has to offer, and the game continues to hold my interest, if for no other reason than the fun obtained in exploring every possible nook and cranny of the detailed and expansive game world.  The game is a joy to play, despite its quirks, and is absolutely worth it for value for money (Crysis Warhead, new: $30, 7 hours of gameplay – Fallout 3, new: $50, 30 hours of gameplay and counting, and that’s just for one character and play style).  So, if you like any sort of action RPG, I would highly recommend it – just remember to leave off the main story quest after you escape from Raven Rock, if you want to keep exploring the world without endgame consequences.

Overall rating:  Quite good!

Who can play it: On easy difficulty, most anyone with some experience in basic RPG mechanics.

Can most people get through the first-person storyline?  Yes, but you might not want to immediately.

How frustrating is it?  It depends on your gameplay style, but generally not too much, if you keep your wits about you and use VATS early and often.

How fun is it?  So much more fun than S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I can tell you that, and a shining example of the potential for RPG games using current gaming graphics and gameplay technology.

Click here to read the plot review for Fallout 3 (contains spoilers)

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